Academic Decathlon : Taft Wins U.S. Super Quiz

Representing California, a team of seniors from Taft High School in Woodland Hills defeated 38 other schools Saturday to win the nationally televised final event of the U.S. Academic Decathlon.

The nine-member Taft team scored 25 out of a possible 30 points to win the Super Quiz, the only event in the contest conducted in front of an audience. In past years, the winner of the Super Quiz has gone on to win the national title.

Taft team members cheered and leaped into the air after learning they had won, defeating their chief rival, Texas state champion Deer Park High School, a suburban Houston school. The Taft team last year finished second, in both the Super Quiz and the national contest, to last year’s Texas champions, J.J. Pearce High School of Richardson, a suburb of Dallas.

Surprisingly Difficult

“I was surprised at how hard it was,” team member Andrew Goodman said of the battery of seven written tests that preceded the Super Quiz on Saturday. “But whatever happens, at least it’s all over.”

The Taft team studied for nine months and won the Los Angeles County and state titles before their latest victory.

“It was worth it, but right now it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” team member Deborah Sim said.

The Taft team must wait until Monday for contest officials to announce the overall winner of the academic decathlon. The score of the Super Quiz was the only one released before Monday’s awards luncheon.

The other six tests in the academic decathlon are in mathematics, geography, fine arts, literature, science and economics. Students are also graded on prepared and impromptu speeches, interviews and essays.

The nine top-scoring students will receive scholarships amounting to $30,000. The top three will get $5,000; the next three $3,000, and the last $2,000.

“I think I did well, but the math test was impossible,” said Taft team member Marc Sarti, who was the top scorer among all students competing in the state finals last month.

Paul Rosenthal, a Taft parent and one of 30 or so people who accompanied the team from Woodland Hills, said he told his son, Andy, “to just play it cool” in the Super Quiz.

Students answered questions for their team in front of about 300 cheering spectators in the gymnasium of the Community College of Rhode Island. The event was televised in cities nationwide, including Los Angeles, over local public broadcasting stations.

The Taft team took an early lead in the 45-question Super Quiz, answering the first 22 questions in a row correctly. The team’s final tally is based on the scores of the top six team members, who each were given five questions and who could score a total possible of 30 points.

Questions in the Super Quiz were based on the 1988 presidential campaign and the history of the U.S. presidency. One question, for example, was: “What is the total number of electors in the electoral college?” (Answer: 538.) Another asked the students to identify the first vice president who resigned from office. (John C. Calhoun.)

The Taft students said Saturday’s Super Quiz was more difficult than the one in the state contest.

Roy Rapoport said he was very disappointed at missing three of the five questions he was asked. “I feel almost guilty; maybe if I had just studied another hour,” he said.

But Rapoport’s mother, Yona, said before the quiz Saturday that regardless of the outcome, she is proud of her son.

“When we came from Israel 3 1/2 years ago, English was a new language for him,” she said. “And now he is in the national finals.”

Taft academic decathlon coach Arthur Berchin said he cannot predict whether his team will win the national title. The only other California team to accomplish that was one from John Marshall High School in 1986.

“I’m nervous,” he said.